Portrait of Time
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Sequel to "Dress Code." The Doctor and Martha run afoul of a sinister plot which only they can stop. But in the mix are some telepathic aliens that need protecting, a mysterious painting with a mind of its own, and an obsessive stranger whose very existence holds major implications for the universe at large. It's a complicated race against time, and evil forces!
1. Chapter 1

**A word or two about this story and series:**

**The onset of September (or the pending onset of September) seems to mark milestones for me in the way of writing about the Doctor and Martha, and their son C.J. Ephraim. It has been one year since I finished "Dress Code," I have written on other, different ideas, and now I am ready to return to the C.J. stories. More accurately, I find that I am unable to keep away from them! There is so much potential for sequel after sequel there, and I have tons of ideas... but I'm honestly not sure how far I will go with it. In all of the stories I've written for our favorite couple, I must say, I hold a special place in my heart for this little series, but I don't want to overdo it, and ruin the storyline or my feelings for it. Or yours!**

**Having said that, this story could have been told as a stand-alone, with any modern Doctor and any modern Companion, and certainly without the pregnancy. In fact, I almost wrote it as an Eleven/Clara tale, just for the challenge of doing something I've never done before! However, as the outline took shape, I realized that with the emotions involved, the pseudo-quantum-mechanics involved later on and the implications for the future... it would make a fine, if heavy, "next chapter" for the Doctor and Martha, as they await the birth of their son. **

**As such, this story picks up the minute "Dress Code" leaves off. It is its own story, of course, but certain things will be bound to make more sense if you have read the previous stories leading up to it. If you don't feel like it, as always, here I provide a synopsis:**

* * *

_**In "Things We Weren't Meant To Know," the Doctor and Martha begin as friends (canon), and fall in love as they attempt to thwart an intergalactic plague. As they research, over time, they realize that they will eventually have a son named C.J. who will do much of the biomedical work that they have used as a jumping-off point in their own studies (it's all very timey-wimey). They know that he will be mostly raised by Martha's sister Tish and her future husband Robert Oliver, and will live, in many ways, quite a sad, bleak life. At the end of the story, Martha realizes she is pregnant with C.J., and as a result, she is imbued with the multiple intelligences of a Time Lord, as her body is temporarily host to a Time Lord consciousness.**_

_**In the story that follows, "Dress Code," a malevolent being without corporeal form begins "stealing" people out of thin air and keeping them prisoner inside the internet. Once the being works out who the Doctor is, and that a new Time Lord will be born soon, his primary objective is to appropriate the baby's consciousness and become omnipotent. The Doctor and Martha are able to dispatch him, but they soon become aware that similar non-corporeal beings are on the prowl, and that this is the sort of thing that could cause them to have to leave their son behind one day for his own protection, to be raised by his aunt and uncle. The story ends with the two of them in a state of depression and doom, having worked out the logistics of perhaps their own demises, and certainly of the sad fate of their relationship with C.J.**_

_**(There is also, in the mix, a oneshot called "Fear" which deals with some of the psychological issues that Martha faces as she comes to terms with motherhood. It's not important to the big picture; it was mostly a therapeutic piece for me, as I was writing "Dress Code" during my own pregnancy, and was having horrible nightmares!)**_

* * *

**And on that happy note, I give you this new offering. If you are inclined to feel attachment to the C.J. stories, that's wonderful - I think this will be great fun for you! If not, I hope you enjoy it as its own thing!**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Much like their lives, the day had brought with it some extreme highs, followed by severe lows. Tish's wedding was bound to be a happy occasion, but it carried with it, at least for Martha and the Doctor, some heavy portents for the future.

And untrue to form tonight, they sat poring over them, until they were both in a depressed stupor. They had pooled some data, and realised that their recent debacle with a basically disembodied data entity, that wielded its malevolence via the internet, would eventually lead to more ugliness that would end with them having to give up their son. After that, Tish and her husband would take the young Time Lord into their capable care, but the boy's parents would never see him alive again.

No matter how much they talked through the different scenarios, it had not helped; it had only served to illustrate to the Doctor and to his temporarily-Time-Lord-imbued Companion that some events in time could be in flux, but their son's fate was not one of them.

The Doctor stopped pacing and turned to look at her, his hands on his hips in an annoyed stance. "Well, blimey! Gotta love the doom and gloom." His voice was tight and angry.

"Let me help," she said. She stood at the console and performed the task that the Doctor had had in mind, cloaking Tish and her husband's existences, so as to make any telepathic scanners believe them to be dead. It was small consolation in the grand scheme of things, but it would help protect their son in the long-run.

The Doctor watched over her shoulder, and was glad to let her do the work this time.

"And now that all the wedding chaos is over with, let's do what we do best," Martha said, flirtatiously. "Something we haven't done in way too long. I'll take the lead."

He raised his eyebrows.

She flipped a few switches on the console and sent the TARDIS out into open space, open time, in search of their next adventure.

* * *

For a bit, she flew the vessel aimlessly, just content to be on the road again, and ecstatic to be piloting the TARDIS on her own. So much of the task required a Time Lord's instinct, feeling one's way through calibrations - navigating on a thin sheath of time versus a stable swathe of events, and balancing all of that with the climate of space and the temperament of the TARDIS herself. Just now, Martha had everything she needed to fly without the Doctor's help, though she knew that the state of things within her mind was temporary, and scheduled to taper off with the birth of their child about two months from now. She reckoned she'd better take advantage of this gift (which could also be a curse, as she had learned) while she still had it.

For the moment, the Doctor was fine with just letting her do the thinking, knowing himself that all too soon, he'd be back in the driver's seat of time and space, with the universe on his shoulders alone. And, for longer than usual, neither of them said anything while they both tried to decompress. For a change, Martha stood at the console while the Doctor sat on the single seat in the room, with his head back, staring at the ceiling.

At last, Martha said lightheartedly, "You know, with all of this drama, I think we deserve a babymoon."

"A baby moon?" the Doctor asked. "There's no such thing. Moons aren't exactly _born_, Martha."

"Well, I know that," she told him, rolling her eyes. "Not a baby moon... a _babymoon_. One word. Like a honeymoon. The last holiday before the baby comes and takes over our lives."

"Oh!" the Doctor replied, sitting up straight. "Is that a real thing?"

"Sort of," she shrugged. "People do it. Well, normal people who don't plan to raise their child in a spaceship. I suppose for us, the babymoon was staying put in London all those months to help Tish."

"Well, just 'cause we're going to be travelling a lot after he comes, doesn't mean we're going to get to have a holiday together," he said with a smile. "At least not until he's, like, five. I say we do it. What would you like to do?"

She chuckled, looking down at her burgeoning belly. "I don't know, but I'd say rock-climbing and water skiing are both out of the question."

"How about the leisure planet of Oliris?"

"Okay. Just how leisurely are we talking?"

"As leisurely as one could want. All manner of fun activities exist there, including rock-climbing and water skiing, but also beaches, libraries, shops, carnivals, spas, restaurants... things that are more in tune with your current speed. _Our_ current speed."

"You just said the magic words: _beach_ and _spa_."

He smiled. "All right then. Set a course for the Cantchep Galaxy, on the outer sector of ring number four."

Martha made some adjustments on the console, and the TARDIS' gears began to churn and whine anew. They were on the right path.

With that, she went to the bedroom to change out of her beige bridesmaid dress, and emerged five minutes later with her hair tied down with a purple band over the top of her head, and a simple v-neck sleeveless frock in black. Most importantly, she was now wearing rubber flip-flops, rather than the torturous high-heeled lace-up shoes Tish had had her in for the wedding. The Doctor's opinion wasn't exactly an objective one these days, but he felt this was how she looked best anyhow.

* * *

When the TARDIS stopped, they expected to step off into the lobby of the grandiose hotel, the Thonil Oliris West, home to the most opulent Red Cloorda Clay Baths in the known universe, renowned for deeply cleaning pores and sinuses, and adjusting its temperature according to the bather's telepathic commands.

But Martha sighed with disappointment when she took a quick glance about. "Damn."

"Well, you missed," the Doctor told her, shrugging. "Welcome to my world. At least we're on the right planet."

Far from being in a hotel lobby, they now found themselves in what looked like an old-fashioned carnival. Beings from different walks of life passed by, tittering, talking, cheering, and everything in-between. The smell of something sweet was in the air, and it reminded Martha of the super-rich caramel corn she had had on the Santa Monica Pier as a kid, while visiting a cousin in California. They were surrounded by gigantic tents of light blue and white stripes, which shone brightly in the afternoon sun, and flapped happily in the gentle wind. Beneath their feet was perfect green grass, and above their heads, a cloudless sky.

"Oh, I know what this is," he mused. "This place is legendary. It's the Pecclates Carnival!"

"All right," Martha nodded. "What's so legendary about it?"

"It's got the universe's largest... well, for lack of a better description, _talent collection_."

"Oh. Interesting!"

He took her hand, and they walked forward a bit. "Yeah, it's filled with these rows of booths," he explained, indicating one of the blue and white tents, where aliens of all different ilks sat in partitioned spaces. "They've managed to procure some of the most talented and fascinating species - and individuals - in the universe. They... entertain, provide services, and what-have-you."

The two of them started down a row of talent stalls, and looked from side to side. On the right, there was a tall man who, on further inspection, had four arms, and was playing a three-tiered xylophone, at about a hundred miles per hour, using eight mallets. A small crowd stood round him in a semi-circle, watching and listening.

On the left, there was a short, stout guy with very red skin, and he was holding a mixing bowl, stirring and talking to folks. On both hands, he wore insulated mittens. Martha stopped for a moment to watch. After finishing the mixing, he poured contents, which was a small amount of reddish batter, into a cup. He took off his mittens and held the cup for about ten seconds in both hands. The batter rose out of the cup slightly, domed over and solidified like a cupcake. He then re-covered his hands with the mittens, placed a crystalline sweet on top of the cupcake, and handed it to a delighted little boy. The boy's father dropped a handful of coins into a bin, and they made to walk on.

"Who's next?" asked the talented baker.

"I am!" said a voice in the crowd. "I'll have chocolate loolifruit with magnuts!"

"Certainly, sir," said the stout man with the burning hands, and he grabbed a clean mixing bowl and began tossing ingredients into it with deceptive quickness and an eye-pleasing flourish.

"Wow," Martha mused.

There were singers, dancers, acrobats, more cooks and instrument-players, sculptors, magicians and athletes. Any kind of talent one could think of was on display here, from the sublime to the grotesque. It was engrossing and curious, and Martha wondered for a moment if the TARDIS had brought them here on purpose!

"Well, are you ready to get back in the TARDIS and try again for the Cloorda Clay Baths?" the Doctor asked her.

She was opening her mouth to say _yes_, when they heard a calm, crisp voice penetrating the general din. "Sir, madam, come this way," it said.

They turned toward the voice, and saw a man, completely humanoid in appearance, sitting alone in a booth. It was the only booth in the vicinity with no patrons currently standing and spectating.

"Yes, you," the man said with a smile to the Doctor and Martha, and he made a little gesture with his fingers for them to approach.

The travellers looked at one another, and then began to walk toward the man. To Martha's Earth eye, he seemed to be about sixty years old - he had short white hair and a pleasantly worn-in face. His eyes were a bright, penetrating aquamarine, and he wore a still, calm smile that made them feel free to come nearer. He was dressed in a blue robe of sorts, vividly-coloured, but it made him seem wisely minimalist somehow.

"Hello, lovely lady," he said to Martha with a slight bow of his head. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. May I ask where you hail from?"

"Erm, Earth," she answered uneasily.

The man smiled. "I see. And, forgive me, but am I to understand that you are expecting a child soon?"

"Yes, in two months."

"That's wonderful news."

She nodded wearily. "Yes, mostly." She had noticed during her pregnancy that there was no room in the public milieu for having mixed feelings about an impending birth; no-one was allowed to acknowledge in the presence of a pregnant woman that parenthood could be a mixed bag and that the prospect was terrifying sometimes - even the pregnant woman herself. Apparently, the same was true all over the universe.

The man looked directly at the Doctor and said, "Congratulations."

"Thank you," the Doctor replied with a slight smile.

"Perhaps you'll allow me to paint your portrait to commemorate the occasion," the man suggested. "The expectant mother and father in the last ecstatic weeks before the happy event."

"Er, I don't think so," the Doctor said, backing away slightly. "Thanks just the same."

The man got suddenly to his feet, and his Zen-like expression changed. His eyes went harder, and his lips squared. "Perhaps just the lady, then," he said with a bit of urgency in his voice.

A little startled, Martha looked at the Doctor, and then back at the stranger, and replied, "I really don't think we need it, but it's nice of you to offer."

"Please," said the man, trying once again to smile. "If you don't mind my saying so, you are a very beautiful woman, and it would be my pleasure to paint your portrait."

"Thank you, but..." she began.

"And," interjected the man, and for a moment, he disappeared behind a thin portion of blue and white tent. He emerged on their side, and took a few tentative steps toward them. "You are all the more beautiful for the warm glow that impending motherhood gives you. It would be a shame to let this opportunity pass."

"Sir, we are actually headed someplace else..." the Doctor protested.

"Look," said the stranger, taking Martha's hand gently. "I don't mean to frighten you. But I am sincere when I say that it would truly be _my pleasure_. I would, of course, do it free of charge, and I would consider it to be a great personal favour."

There was something pleading in the man's blue eyes. Something pleading, and somehow innocent as well. It was something that made Martha not want to pull her hand away and flee when he stared into her, as she might do with any other presumptuous stranger.

"A free portrait that you'd get to take with you, and have for posterity," he said, letting go of her hand. He looked again at the Doctor. "What have you got to lose?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. Whatever it was that Martha had seen, he was seeing it as well.

Martha sighed. "How long would it take?"

"An hour at the most," the man said excitedly.

She looked at the Doctor. "Is it all right with you?"

He shrugged. "Sure, if you want it."

"Okay," she conceded to the blue-eyed man. "One hour."

"Wonderful!" the man clapped, taking her hand and hurrying toward his booth in the tent. He pulled her through the thin flap, and the Doctor followed. He invited them to be seated on two short stools that sat in the stall where he worked.

"I promise, you will not regret this!" he exclaimed as he set up his easel. "I am so grateful to you both!" He hung a can of brushes off the side of the wooden apparatus, and reached into a box and extracted a canvas which he then affixed, using some rollers and a clamp.

As he moved about the space, the travellers glanced at each other a few times, and just watched him rush around.

At last, the stranger turned to them, and looked Martha over. "All right, now," he said, clapping once again, then framing her between his fingers. "There is some _special_ paint I'd like to use for this special occasion. I won't be a moment."

He disappeared behind the booth between two flaps of tent. In a moment, the Doctor and Martha heard a weird, low groaning sound, almost like a large creature in pain. Once again, they looked at each other, both wondering silently whether they had made a mistake in agreeing to this. They had been looking for a relaxing holiday, and somehow had got roped into an hour-long portrait-sitting with a mysteriously keen stranger who seemed to have a dying animal behind his workspace.

Within a few minutes, the man returned with a palette of various colours and a wide grin. "Shall we begin?"

"Sure," Martha said.

The stranger smiled, beatifically, as he had when they'd first seen him. "By the way, what is your name, lovely lady?"

"Erm... Martha," she replied. "And this is the Doctor."

"_Enchanté_," he said, before taking up two brushes. He began alternating between glances at Martha and mixing his _special_ paints on his palette.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What _about_ me?" he wanted to know.

"What's your name?"

He was wide-eyed for a moment, glancing back and forth between her and the Doctor. "Well, you can call me Michelangelo." Then he went back to his work.

"Great," she sighed. The Doctor patted her knee in sympathy, and the two of them willed this sitting to be over as soon as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The keen stranger made good on his promise: Martha was finished with her portrait sitting within an hour. Afterwards, the man who had asked to be called Michelangelo wrapped up the painting in black paper, tied it off with some burlap string, and handed it off to them.

"Thank you for this opportunity, Martha," he said, kissing her hand.

"You're welcome. It was nice," she responded, in spite of the fact that the whole business had made her uneasy.

"And thank you, Doctor," said Michelangelo. "I sincerely hope that we will meet again." He reached out to shake the Doctor's hand, and looked him so intensely in the eye, that the Doctor, the infinite extrovert, was taken aback.

"Well, perhaps we will," he answered, trying very hard not to recoil from the handshake.

"Until next time, then?"

The Doctor smiled slightly, clutching the painting under one arm, and taking Martha's hand with his other. Then he turned.

"Ah, Mr... er, Michelangelo," he said. "We were actually looking for the Thonil Oliris West. Can you point us in the right direction?"

The painter indicated that the famed resort hotel was only a quarter-mile from where they were standing - they just couldn't see it because of the large blue and white striped tents. It was actually quite close.

"Well, we could try and precision-aim the TARDIS," he pointed out after the painter had retreated to his booth. "Or we could walk."

"Let's just walk," Martha answered, taking his arm.

"Are you sure you're up to that?" he asked, referring, of course, to the extra weight she was carrying.

"Yeah," she assured him. "My hips are feeling weighed-down. I think a little exercise will do me good."

* * *

They checked in, and also paid for an afternoon in the Cloorda Clay spa, the Doctor promising to go back to the blue box for their personal effects afterwards. They were directed to a room decorated in roughly the same light blue and white as the Pecclates Carnival tents. They were told to change into the white bathrobes, and that an attendant would be along in a bit, to bring them down for their spa treatment.

While they waited, they unwrapped the painting, and the Doctor sat it up on the bed, leaning against the headboard.

"It's nice," he said.

"It is," she agreed reluctantly.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked, looking her over, noticing the uneasiness on her face.

"Nothing, it's just..." she paused, and sighed, placing one hand on her hip. "Doesn't it seem a little creepy?"

"I think it's extraordinary."

And in point of fact, Michelangelo _had_ turned out to be an extraordinary artist. He had captured Martha perfectly. The skin tone in the painting matched Martha's unquestionably, and the cat-like shape of her dark eyes was imprinted upon the canvas almost like a photograph. But a photograph would never allow for the radiance of those eyes, and would never catch the intelligence behind them - that was something that only a sentient creator could have insinuated into the work.

Perhaps this was the reason why Martha found it creepy, the fact that this artist seemed to _know_ her, almost as though he'd got into her head. For his part, the Doctor liked it because the artist had seemed to see in her exactly what he, the Doctor, saw. Although, considering his relationship with her, he reckoned that maybe having a third party see through all of that _was_ just a bit eerie.

At the carnival, she had been wearing a black v-neck tee-shirt, but Michelangelo had painted her with a royal purple shawl draped over her shoulders and resting lazily, elegantly, over her chest. The mysterious, impassive look on her face was reminiscent of the famed _Mona Lisa_, and indeed the paean landscape in the background brought DaVinci's famous masterpiece to mind as well.

There was no doubt that the artist had done amazing work in a very short time, but Martha still felt disturbed by it.

"Well, there was the fact that Michelangelo was so keen on you," he offered after a little time spent admiring the piece, smiling a little. "What am I going to do, _blame_ _him_ for thinking your face is worthy of preserving for posterity?"

"No, it's like it doesn't belong here. Or anywhere."

"Hm."

"It doesn't bother you?"

He squinted at the painting. "Now you mention it..."

And there was a knock at the door. They were greeted by a man who, on Earth, would have been considered unnaturally tall, and probably taken for Asian. (Later, the Doctor explained that he was actually considered something like a pygmy on his own planet.) He escorted them silently down to the Cloorda Clay baths, and once there, calmly instructed them on how to maximise the experience, including precisely aiming one's thoughts toward the temperature and effervescence-level of the bath.

Just before climbing in, the Doctor said, "Well, if the painting bothers you that much, I'll take it back to the TARDIS with me, when I go out to get our things. I'll bury it in one of those rooms piled up with rubbish - we'll never see it again."

* * *

The Doctor wondered whether it was Martha's human senses that were bothered by the painting, or whether she thought it was her Time Lord prickliness causing the discomfort. If it was the latter, perhaps something needed looking-into; Martha, the baby, the painter, the paint. But if that were the case, why didn't it grate on _him _that way? Was it something to do with the baby's specific presence or senses, or needs? Although, he had seen _something _in it while they were waiting for the attendant to arrive, before they'd been interrupted.

Actually, he wondered if she could even tell the difference anymore between her old womanly human instinct and her Time Lord prickles. But during the bath, he pointedly avoided talking about the painting, because he wanted her to relax.

"How are your hips?" he asked. The words came out much more slurred than he had anticipated.

She chuckled. "They feel like they're cradling an extra person twenty-four hours a day."

"If you effervesce your bath, you might find a pleasing bit of buoyancy."

She aimed her thoughts as the tall/pygmy/pseudo-Asian man had instructed, and found the bubbles massaged her back exactly as she had hoped, and also buoyed her up a little bit, to take the pressure off. She silently thanked the universe for the ability to refine her thoughts into such precise commands. She didn't figure she'd have been able to do this without the extra push from her offspring.

When ninety minutes was up, a different man came into the room and similarly instructed them on how to cleanse the clay from their bodies. They took a leisurely shower together, and then were escorted into another room for a massage. It had been the Doctor's little surprise for Martha. The masseur had even brought out a massage table with a collapsible middle section to accommodate her front cargo.

Afterwards, they dried off with special towels meant to open the pores to the massage oil, and then were escorted by one of the masseurs back to their room. He was rather a bear of a man - tallish, wide, hairy with a moustache, and it sort of surprised Martha that someone who looked like him would be so soft-spoken and work as a masseur. She felt a little ashamed of herself for having such thoughts, stereotyping the way she was, and of course she couldn't deny his skill. She had not felt so loose nor free of general soreness since before discovering her pregnancy.

The masseur caught her staring at him. "Are you enjoying your time on Oliris, ma'am?" he asked.

She shook off the reverie and blushed. "Y-yes," she said. "I'm sorry, I... yes. It's lovely here. I can't remember when I've felt so relaxed."

"Where have you been so far?" he wanted to know.

Martha looked at the Doctor, because she couldn't remember the name of the carnival with the blue and white tents.

"We went to the Pecclates Carnival earlier today," the Doctor answered on her behalf.

"Ah," the man said, suddenly looking away. He stared at the back of the lift's door. "And how did you find it?"

"It was pretty amazing," Martha answered. "Lots of talent there." In truth, she was thinking of the man who literally baked cupcakes with his bare hands.

"So I hear," the masseur commented, going unnaturally stiff. "Did you avail yourself of any of their unique services?" His voice was curt and a bit irritated.

Martha and the Doctor looked at each other questioningly, although obviously neither one of them had any answers as to the irritation.

"Er, well, we did have a portrait done," the Doctor said. "The man was very nice - did it for free."

"I'm sure he did," said the masseur gravely.

"And it's a beautiful painting, but...," Martha began, then stopped.

"But what?"

"Oh, I just find that I don't like it very much, in spite of the fact it's so well-done."

"If it displeases you, what are you going to do with it?"

"Well, we were just saying a little while ago, we think we'll just put it in storage," Martha told him.

"Sir, ma'am, I hope you don't think me too presumptuous," the masseur said after a pause, still staring at the back of the lift door. "But I would be very interested to see it, if you are inclined to allow me."

The Doctor looked at Martha for approval, and she shrugged.

"Sure, why not?" the Doctor said to the masseur.

Within a minute, they were being ushered into their room by the masseur, and the Doctor went straight for the painting, which was still on the bed. He brought it to the man for inspection.

"Here it is," the Doctor said.

"It's quite beautiful," the masseur whispered, taking it in his own two hands. To Martha, he said with a warm smile, "He captured your likeness very well."

"He did," she agreed. "No argument here."

"You're radiant," he said.

"Thanks," she said, though she was not sure whether he meant in real life, or in the painting.

After staring at the painting fondly for a few more long moments, the masseur said, "A gratuity charge is added onto your total bill for my personal services. I would be more than happy to waive that charge in favour of accepting this painting in its stead."

"Erm..." the Doctor began, scratching at the short hairs on the back of his neck nervously. "Are you... are you saying you want this painting as a _tip_?"

"Yes, sir," replied the masseur. He held the painting out, away from his person, admired it and absently commented, "I believe that someone ought to enjoy it, rather than relegating it to storage."

"Come again?"

"Someone ought to enjoy it. All slave labour down there at that damned carnival," the masseur muttered as he ran his fingers over the exquisitely textured paint. "Someone pours their heart and soul into a piece of work and gets nothing in return, it really shouldn't just go into storage."

"Excuse me?" the Doctor said, his voice piping up considerably from a moment ago. "Did you say _slave labour_?"

The Doctor's tone seemed to snap the man to, and he answered, "I said... well, I sometimes get carried away, don't I? I just mean... well, I have friends who work down there, and they complain... they're a tad underpaid, they think, but... well, don't we all feel that we're underpaid?" He started to back toward the door, painting in-hand.

"Wait, are you part of an activist group or something?" the Doctor wanted to know, following him toward the door.

"No, no, there are no groups, nothing like that. Because there's no reason for it!" said the masseur. "I apologise, sir, it was a simple slip of the tongue. Will there be anything else?"

The Doctor and Martha both looked him over suspiciously, and could clearly see the _get me out of here_ look on his face.

The Doctor sighed. "No, nothing else. Again, thanks for the massages."

"You're welcome. You don't mind if I take the painting in lieu of money, then?"

"Erm," the Doctor responded, glancing at Martha. "I suppose... not?"

Martha couldn't find the words to respond quickly enough.

"Thank you very much," said the masseur. "Enjoy the rest of your stay on Oliris."


	3. Chapter 3

**Just wanted to take a moment to say, thanks for following this story, and sorry the updates are so slow. The slowness is likely to continue, unfortunately! Work has kicked up a notch and it's probably not going to get much better until May! Also, my personal life is oddly unyielding, time-wise, these days.**

**But you have my word: in light of the infrequent postings, I will do my best to make the wait worth it every single time! Please enjoy, and continue to review. If anything spurs me on, it's good, juicy reviews! Off we go again...**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"Well, I wonder what that was all about," she commented.

The Doctor stood, staring at the back of the door through which the masseur had just made his uncomfortable exit.

"I mean," she continued. "It's a nice painting, but really, what does he want it for? I'm a complete stranger to him."

"You heard him, Martha," the Doctor muttered. "If there really is a big slave racket going on at the Pecclates Carnival and he's against the idea, then maybe he actually is just feeling that someone ought to enjoy it. The work that is done in the festival deserves some love."

"Do you really think that's the reason why?" she asked, sceptially, hands on her hips.

"I don't know," he conceded softly. "I think it's possible."

The clothes they had been wearing before, in their absence, had been nicely folded and placed upon a glass desk. She picked up her swishy black dress and headed for the loo. "Well, whatever. It doesn't matter much. I'm a little glad to be rid of it."

"Yeah."

"And anyway, we've got bigger fish to fry."

"We do?"

"Sure," she said to him from the doorway to the loo. "There wasn't any chance you were going to let this slavery thing go, was there?"

"No," he admitted. "I don't reckon there was."

"Good. Just let me get changed, and we'll check out and get back on the road."

He blinked at her. "Okay. What about the babymoon?"

She went into the loo and shut the door. From inside, she said, "I don't want our baby born into a universe where that's happening. And I certainly don't want to have to tell him that we came here, saw it, and did nothing about it... for_ his _sake. I don't think we could ever justify that, could we?"

"Suppose not," the Doctor said with a smirk and an internal thought of how perfect a Companion Martha Jones really was. With that, he began climbing, with a little sigh, out of the white terry cloth robe and back into his brown suit.

* * *

Striding back into the TARDIS much sooner than planned, Martha asked, "Where do we even start?"

"To investigate a slave trade? By looking for documentation. Owning slaves is big business, Martha, and it's dodgy keeping your investment under control, because sentient beings like to be free and they tend to escape. There's no way they aren't keeping records."

"Oh," she said flatly. "I suppose it _would_ be a good idea to do some research before we hatch a plan to go in with torches blazing."

He nodded absently. "We need to find out how long it's been going on, how high and deep it goes. How did it start? Who started it? We need to know what species are involved, and if their home planets are compliant, or if the 'talent' is being kidnapped. Who else knows about it? Is it just the Pecclates Carnival, or the whole of planet Oliris? What are the living conditions? Et cetera."

"Though, you know," she added with a pause. She narrowed her eyes in deep thought. "We _are_ probably going to have to go in someday soon with torches blazing. It probably wouldn't hurt to find a schematic to the carnival, or figure out what sorts of safeguards they have to keep their 'talent' under lock and key."

"Good point," he told her, and he began to pace round the console, hands in pockets. "We'll call that priority B."

"Right. So, first things first, though. Do we find some kind of government office nearby to look for official records?"

"Not a bad idea," he said. "But we also need to bear in mind that the masseur, sincere as he seemed... he may have been lying. Or exaggerating. Or mistaken! He may have been, as I said, an activist, or just an overzealous sort of bloke. We need to take his word on... well, a little more than on his word itself."

"So, open minds as always," she said with a little smile.

* * *

They moved across the continent upon which they witnessed the Pecclates Carnival, to the capitol city of Sbilitean Repos, and followed signs, cues and advice to the civic centre. There, they were surprised to find a throng of tourists moving in and out of the government buildings. They decided to follow the crowd, and made their way through the courthouse, the mayor's office and the police station, listening to tour guides explain what they were seeing (or at least, what the Olirian government _wanted_ folks to _think_ they were seeing).

Toward the end of the tour, they followed the crowd into a library. On the wall in the back of the building, there was a huge sign that said, "Coming Soon: Hall of Public Records." They looked at each other, as they had seen it at the same time, and approached. It looked as though part of the back of the building had already been blown out to accommodate the new wing, and outside, through a veil of semi-opaque plastic, they could see that a foundation was being dug. There was a large guard standing sentry at the plastic wall.

"Hello there," said the Doctor to the guard.

"Hello," said the guard, not returning any hint of the Doctor's whimsy.

"So, what's going on here, eh?"

The guard pointed up at the sign, looking annoyed.

The Doctor looked up, and pretended to see it for the first time. "Coming Soon: Hall of Public Records," he said. "Ah, I see. But don't you already have one of those?"

"Not for display," said the guard.

"Oh, so your government is putting together a museum of important documents?"

"Pretty much."

"What a lovely idea," the Doctor commented. To Martha he said, "Isn't it a lovely idea?"

"Very, very lovely," said Martha, smiling at the guard.

"So, what kinds of documents are going in the museum? Would it have, like, say, government acquisitions, that sort of thing?" asked the Doctor, still pretending to make small talk.

"I really cannot discuss that," said the guard.

"Oh, but if it's all going on display soon anyway," Martha pointed out. "Can't you just give us a hint? What's the big secret if it's going in a museum?"

"Can't discuss it. Sorry."

"Well, I'll tell you something," said the Doctor. "I'm a big fan of government procedural documentation."

"He is," Martha agreed, taking his arm. "He can't get enough of it."

"I've read the minutes of every meeting held by the Sengrocs Council for the past 400 years, and it's bloody riveting! I would be very interested to see the storehouse of artefacts you've got on the runway for the museum. Do you think I could just take a peek? As Martha says, if it's all going to be on display soon, where's the harm?"

"Sir, madam, I must really ask you to move along." The guard had not moved his arms nor legs nor shoulders the entire time he'd been interacting with them. In fact, he had only _barely_ bothered to move his lips.

"Aw, come on," the Doctor protested with a smile.

The guard reached into his breast pocket and extracted what looked like a black chopstick. He spoke to it. "Murcho to Shay-base, I'm going to need back-up at the Hall of Records site."

"Oh, no need for that," the Doctor said, backing off. "We're going away now. See? Moseying along like nothing ever happened."

He took Martha's hand and began to lead her away, perhaps a bit more swiftly than normal.

"You _had_ to push, didn't you?" she asked.

"Oh, leave it," he snapped. "If I hadn't, you would have. Besides, it lets us know whether they're being unnecessarily secretive. Seems to me that if they're about to put a bunch of that stuff on display, they wouldn't be quite so cagey about letting us have a look."

"Hmph," she sniffed. "Let's just move quickly before the guys with the guns arrive. I am in no shape to be running."

* * *

They reckoned that the guard had simply wanted to frighten them, because as far as either one of their heightened senses could tell, they had not been followed out of the library, either physically, or via surveillance.

"Well, shall we try again later?" asked the Doctor, as they walked across a grassy knoll toward the TARDIS.

"Yeah, I was thinking we should."

"I'll bet that if we try again in eight hours, that guard will be off-duty, there will be someone new there, and we can pose as officials, and use the psychic paper to gain access."

"Oh," she said, stopping to face him. "I was thinking we could just jump ahead a few years and visit the museum after it's finished."

"Oh, you meant _later_ later!" he exclaimed. "Well, that idea is cleaner, more efficient, less chance of getting caught..."

"Less fun, you mean?" she asked him, half-smirking.

"Well..."

"Yeah, so," she interrupted, pushing the TARDIS doors open. "How many years? Five? Ten?"

"Let's play it safe and go a hundred."

"A hundred?" she asked, hands on the time controls. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. The Hall will be firmly established by then, security will have been lessened, and our faces will have been well and truly forgotten."

"Our faces?"

"Well, we didn't get followed out of there, but that doesn't mean that we didn't get blacklisted."

"Oh, so, you think there will be _deny entry to these two miscreants_ signs up round the site?" she asked with a chuckle.

"They're cagey Martha. And it's happened to me before, when I'd thought I'd got of scot-free."

She sighed. "All right, if you say so."

She steered the TARDIS to roughly the same spot, one hundred years on. When they stepped outside, they saw that the civic centre tableau had not changed much, except that the crowds were all but gone.

A nearby sign led them to underground tunnels meant to keep tourists comfortably out of the sun. Once ensconced in the concrete passages, they followed yet more signs back to the library and through to the Hall of Public Records, now called the Oliris Civic Museum, and charging a bit of money to breach its gates.

The Doctor handed the psychic paper to a woman, a ticket-scanner, and she absently ran her wand over the surface and waved them on.

"Thank you," the Doctor said.

The woman looked up at him, and said, "You're welcome. Enjoy your..." With that, her eyes fell on Martha. "...tour of our..."

And her voice trailed off.

"Hello," Martha said uneasily, as the woman stared. "Are you all right?"

The woman caught herself and cleared her throat. "I'm fine, I'm sorry! Oh, how rude of me. It's just... I feel I've seen you somewhere before."

"Oh," Martha answere sheepishly. "I guess I just have one of those faces." She smiled casually and stepped through the turnstyle behind the Doctor, before the woman could change her mind and call her back.

"Damn it," he muttered at her as they made their way through the museum foyer. "We _were_ blacklisted! But it's been a hundred years!"

"Well," she said. "I guess the Olirians hold a grudge."

"But that doesn't make any sense," he speculated, pointing toward yet more signs that seemed to lead them where they needed to go. "They mostly cater to planets within seventy light-years, and there are no species within that distance that live longer than a thousand years on average. Keeping our picture up as a _do not admit_ for this long would be tantamount to keeping one up for like ten years on Earth! No-one keeps a blacklist in a public place for that long. Do they?"

Martha shrugged. "I don't know, I was never blacklisted from anywhere until I met you."

They climbed a flight of stairs and walked down a long hallway. The crowd had thinned out, as most of the tourists seemed more interested in the _Treasured Antiquities_ exhibit than the _Public Records_ department. They stepped through a large wooden door into a cavernous space filled with what looked like row after row of fibreglass cases, six feet high, and wide as the TARDIS' console room. It looked like approximately half a mile of open books on display, with touch-activated page turners. Ledgers, forms, checking registers...

"Ugh," the Doctor groaned.

"You didn't think it would be easy, did you?" she asked.

"Isn't any of this computerised?"

"Don't you reckon it all is? But if we go looking for it in digital format, we may leave a digital signature in places where folks will be looking to protect their interests," she pointed out. She looked meaningfully at him. "And we can't afford to do that. For several reasons."

"Fine," he sighed.

They began walking down the row after row, looking closely at the open books, searching for any kind of thread that would give them a clue as to what they were looking at and where to go next. Once in a while, they ran across other tourists or museum employees, and a few of them gave Martha a funny look.

"Okay, this is getting unnerving," she commented. "It's not you - it's me. They're looking at me."

"I don't know what to tell you," he said. "Do you want to leave?"

She sighed. "No, but let's not dawdle."

"Trust me, I'm not. I could think of at least a thousand more fun places to go if I had dawdling in mind."

After an hour, their eyes and brains grew a bit weary of the tiny type and the total lack of anything concrete to grasp.

"I'm starting to wonder if it's all written in code," he said.

"I'm starting to wonder why the hell we ever thought they would put slavery acquisition records on display for any reason."

They stopped and looked at each other with despair. They were in row one hundred forty-eight, they were further than they realised from the door, and Martha noticed she had grown hungry. It was rare that they would think this much, spend this much time, and come up with absolutely _nothing_. Especially with Martha's heightened senses.

And then, the Doctor's eyes wandered someplace to the left, and fixed there.

"What?" she asked, noticing the wide stare.

He pointed toward the wall with a slow gesture, never taking his eyes off the spot. "Now we know why people around here think they've seen you before."

Martha turned, and when she saw it, she gasped. It was hanging in the Hall of Records, on an otherwise completely blank wall. It just didn't seem like it belonged...

"What the_ hell_ is that painting doing here?" she wanted to know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Right, well," said the Doctor, staring at the painting. "Let's not freak out."

"I'm not freaking out," Martha protested. "Do you see me freaking out?"

He shifted his eyes to hers, and spied her looking back and forth between him and the portrait, swiftly, like a bird. " A little bit," he responded, carefully.

"Yeah, well, can you blame me?" It came out of her mouth a lot more loudly than she had intended.

He put his hand on her arm, and squeezed, trying to comfort her a bit. "Shh, it's okay. Martha, really, it's not _that_ odd," he said. "Any number of perfectly reasonable scenarios could have led it to this spot."

"Okay. Reassure me," she challenged.

"Well, it did occur to us, didn't it, that the masseur could have been an activist," he offered, walking toward the work of art by a few steps, and stopping. "He could have donated it to charity. Or become a mogul of sorts. Maybe the anti-slavery campaign picked up steam and the masseur became a Frederick Douglass figure, and all of his possessions became museum-worthy."

She frowned at him sceptically. "Maybe," she muttered.

"Maybe he used it as a jumping-off point to bring attention to the Carnival and its injustices, and it became the centrepiece of a new artistic and social movement."

"Doctor."

"Maybe he was lying to us about why he wanted it. Maybe he became infatuated with you during the short time he attended to us, and his intention all along was to use it as a model for a cyber-mate, and the portrait became the icon or logo for a technology company that swept the planet with its life-like reproductions of people, the _Martha Jones-bot_ having been its first and most famous creation, hundreds of which have been reproduced as collector's pieces."

She scowled at him, and he smiled with amusement.

"Well? What do _you_ think happened?" he asked.

"The masseur probably just died without any heirs and his stuff became government property," she shrugged. "Or something like that."

"Yeah, probably. See?"

She kicked him lightly in the shin. "Oh, shut up."

"Martha, it's an extraordinary piece. This is a museum. We left it here a hundred years ago, and now it's on a wall. It's not that weird."

"Fine," she sighed. "It's just... it's on a wall that has no other art on it."

"Yeah, well, the aestheticians here need another week-end of training."

She wrinkled her nose at the painting. "Is there any way we could justify removing it from here? Maybe taking it out back and burning it?"

"Don't you think that would be overreacting, just a tad?"

Her voice rose in pitch. "Imagine _you _landed on some planet in some random time-frame and stumbled across your own likeness, and you had no idea how it got there. How would you handle it?"

"It's happened. More than once. I handled it fine"

"Of course you did," she snapped. "Well, sorry, I guess I'm not as savvy as you. This is my first time, okay?"

"Martha! Just slow down for a moment and look within. You can see across time and space, or have you forgotten? You can see the possibilities. The universe does not revolve round this painting in any way, shape or form. It does not affect you, other than the fact it has your likeness."

"But it does."

"What?"

"It _does _affect me, Doctor."

"In what way?"

"I don't know," she whispered, turning her attention back to the painting. She walked toward it once again, and got within an arm's length. She reached out, and _almost_ touched it, ran her fingers just a millimetre or two over the surface. "I just know that it does."

"I'm sorry, love, I just don't think so," he said softly, coming up next to her.

She dropped her hand and turned to him. "Isn't it possible for two Time Lords to have disparate experiences of the space-time constitution, and both be correct?"

"Never thought about it," he answered pursing his lips. "I suppose so."

"I mean, the oscillations of time and space very rarely ever have straightforward right and wrong answers."

"True."

"And yes, when they're straightforward, they're _really_ straightforward," she ruminated, turning back to face the painting. "But this doesn't feel that way. This is just... grating on me somehow. And not on you."

He reached out, and _nearly_ touched it, much as she had a few moments before. "Well, I won't say there's _nothing_ weird about it..."

"Can a likeness of a person carry that person's essence? I mean, is it possible that the painting is literally _part of me_, and that's why I feel a sense of foreboding? Because it's a piece of me separated from the whole?"

"I've never heard of that happening, unless the artists' materials were taken directly from the subject somehow," he said. "But for that to work, you would have had to transfer your own essence into, say, the canvas or a piece of wood that became the brush. And you'd have had to do it first, on your own, before the work on the painting even started. No-one could do it _to you_, especially not in the short time it took to paint this thing."

"Could I have done it accidentally?"

"Highly, _highly _unlikely," he said. "And the odds of your doing it accidentally, and then accidentally giving Michelangelo the object to work with, and not knowing about it..."

"Yeah, that's true," she agreed. And she felt, in her Time Lord gut, that what the Doctor was saying _was _true.

"Martha, I believe that something about this painting is weighing on your Spidey Senses, as you call them, but... it might take some time to work out why."

"Yeah, I know."

"We can pursue it, but we have slaves to free. Or at least, we have to find out _whether_ we have slaves to free. Don't you think we should do that first?"

She nodded. "Yes, I do."

"Good. Then, it's time to take a different tack, because I saw Azuros."

"You saw what?"

"Azuros," said the Doctor. "I saw at least two Azuros Beasts at the Pecclates Carnival. They're big and blue - tough to miss, and impossible to mistake for anything else."

"Oh yeah, weren't they doing some sort of dance?"

"Yep. And I reckon it's daft to try and look for slave acquisition records on the culprit planet. Seeing the Azuros was a coup, because now we can come at it from the other direction."

"A _very_ good point," Martha admitted. "So you want to see if there are any records of the Azuros being submitted into slavery somehow, records on _their_ planet?"

"Yep."

"Let's go."

* * *

The planet Azu had no tourist-aimed museum that held public records, no shiny library of plexiglass cases, no artificially transparent government histories.

All they had was a grey, cramped, concrete council building, eighteen stories high, each floor with the approximate area of Martha's flat.

The two of them stared at the labels on the sides of the stacks for a few moments, and then Martha said, "Is it just me, or did we just get really lucky?"

"It's not just you," he muttered. "It's all arranged by planet."

They followed the shelves alphabetically up several flights of stairs.

"Those blue beasts were kind of huge," Martha commented. "These stairwells are barely wide enough for _us_, let alone big shaggy dancing behemoths."

"Yeah," the Doctor whined. "I'm not sure what that's about."

They reached a sign with alphabetic labels that indicated they were in the right place. The row labelled "Oliris," chronicling Azu's goings-on with the leisure planet, was not far.

The volumes within different sections were arranged chronologically, but Oliris had only one document. They looked at each other as they pulled it slowly off the shelf. They brought it to a podium at the end of the row, whose paint was chipping off, and opened it.

"Bill of sale for two Great Beasts from the Aoi Wildnerness," the Doctor read.

Martha clicked her tongue between her teeth, reading further. "Great Beasts, said to be highly intelligent, and worth their weight in gold for their remarkable size, strength and agility."

"Beasts of burden," he muttered.

"Like livestock."

"Sentient, intelligent livestock. That can attract customers and learn how to dance and engage, and collect money."

"And know exactly what's happening to them."

There was a heavy silence, and then the Doctor put his finger in the text. "Sold to the Acquisitions Corps of the planet Oliris for the sum of eight million Loccors, for the purposes of entertainment."

"Return date: indefinite."

"Yep. So, perhaps the twelfth of Never?"

"Sounds about right," Martha commented, biting the side of her lip. She continued to run her eyes over the document, and then, "Get this: _Acquired from the depths of the Aoi Spruce Forest, amid dark rotation. Third party was lost in the acquisition process, accounted for in official death records."_

"Blimey," he whispered. "Stolen in the middle of the night?"

"By government mandate?"

"And a third Beast died in the struggle."

"So kidnapped in the dark," she said. "Struggle to the death, big pay-off, acquisition for entertainment purposes, never to be returned."

"Well, I'm not an expert, but I think we're dealing with a slavery ring in that Carnival, Martha."

"Certainly sounds like it," she agreed. "Is there a way to be certain they're not being properly compensated?"

"Probably," he conceded. "But snooping about in the Oliris archives didn't reveal anything interesting."

"Except..." she whispered.

When she didn't say anymore, he probed, "Except, what?"

"Except that," she answered, pointing at a wall.

"What, _that_, again?"

* * *

This time, they got the hell out of there, and went back to the TARDIS to ruminate over the painting, and what in the name of Minerva it was doing in yet _another_ hall of records.

"I don't know what to tell you, Martha," he shrugged. "I wish I did."

"But it's a _different planet_, in a _different galaxy_, Doctor!"

"I'm thinking that the one hanging in the file rooms of Azu is a print. The original, much as you wouldn't like to believe it, must have become a kind of Mona Lisa for the ages. There might be prints all over the place."

"Fantastic," she spat. "Look, are we done for the day? I'm exhausted."

"Yeah," he nodded, waving her off. "Yeah, we're done."

"Good. I'm going to go have a bath."

"I'll scare up some omelettes or something and come find you in a while."

She nodded, and disappeared down the hall.

The Doctor buried both hands in his hair, and sighed, hoping against hope that Martha believed what he'd said, because he wasn't sure that he believed it himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**_Sorry_ for the long absence! I was developing an idea. Oh, and also trying to hold down a job and have a life. Darn life!**

**And speaking of which, it might be said that this chapter is a bit of a B-road for this idea I'd had. It's all still going toward the same purpose (the slavery ring, and the mysterious painting), but I do spend a lot of story on vapor. :-) Suffice it to say, it is a teacher's worst nightmare!**

**And in other news, I am almost certain that I'll be able to post chapter 6 fairly soon - it will not be as long of a wait! Thanks to those who are sticking with it. I will make it worth your while!**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

After Martha had a bath, the two of them partook of some heavenly omelets and some good quality quiet time together. This was followed by sleep. For the Doctor, it was an exhausted, dreamless slumber. Martha's rest, however, as usual, was plagued by various disjointed images, scenarios of stalking and danger, of her own eyes staring back at her menacingly whilst spying in from another world...

In the morning, Martha took her time getting to the console room. Everything hurt, even her brain. The possibilities of how and why the painting might have ended up in the places where they had seen it were beginning to take shape in her time-and-space savvy mind. She was uncomfortable with all scenarios. She sorely wished they had held onto the painting, rather than bartering it away. Then again, what sort of bizarreness would have occurred, had they brought it aboard the TARDIS?

Despite the long bath from the night before, she decided to take a hot shower before discovering the Doctor's goings-on for the day. In a moment of personal candor, she realised that she was stalling getting to the console room because she knew that the Doctor would want to pursue the slavery ring, and it was a fatiguing thought for her. Thus far, there had been very few useful revelations, and a lot of angst. She was reluctant to admit even to herself that she'd very much like to ditch this particular line of inquiry, and rather regretted telling him that she didn't want their child born into this kind of a universe...

...but she still felt it. No matter how sore she was, inside and out, she could not deny the victims of this racket. She knew deep within that they _had_ to keep on...

* * *

She sighed. "Good morning," she said with a soft, reluctant smile.

"Morning," he said, turning toward her. He was sitting upon the stool staring at the computer screen. "All right?"

"Mostly," she told him. "What are you up to?" She sidled up beside him and rested one elbow on his shoulder, cradling his head and kissing his temple.

He curled his arm round her and absently rubbed the lovely round belly beneath the bright purple tee-shirt. "I'm wondering how long the slavery thing goes on for."

"And?"

"I can't tell," he said, standing up and motioning for her to sit down in his place. "There are no records of it anywhere, except in the sales/acquisitions reports of other planets involved."

"Well, can't blame Oliris for wanting to cover their tracks."

"Nope."

"So what do we do? Jump ahead a thousand years to see what's what?"

"That was my thought," he said.

* * *

The two of them stood in the doorway of the TARDIS, looking down at what had to be an empty planet. There did not appear to be any _terra firma_, rather, the entire body looked to be churning with boiling magma. It glowed bright orange all around, and once every minute or so, they would hear an epic explosion, then see some indicator of rock flying in all directions.

"This is Azu?" Martha asked. "And it's only been a thousand years since we were here? Poking around in that dank, old, lava-free file room?"

"Yep," he responded. "I mean, I think so. Unless the TARDIS got it wrong."

Martha went to the console to check the settings, look over the coordinates and run her eyes over the information on the screen. "Seems okay," she shrugged. "So what gives?"

"What's the nearest inhabited planet?" he asked, not turning around to look at her.

She typed something on the keyboard and said, "Gufere," she said. "But _near_ is all relative, of course."

"Of course," he muttered. "Still, let's set a course there and see if it doesn't give us some insights."

"You think it was a refuge for anyone who fled from Azu?"

"I think there's a chance."

"Really? Just flee from a dying world and everyone take refuge somewhere else that's already inhabited? I mean, the nearest ship didn't even want to take on the _Titanic_ survivors. Could a neighbouring planet even do that? "

"Depends on the dying world. Depends on the planet chosen as a refuge. Depends on their relationship, frankly."

She nodded and set coordinates for Gufere, and the TARDIS dematerialised.

* * *

On Guefere, in a routine that was starting to feel old-hat at this stage, they located a government records building, feigned official business, flashed the psychic paper and swerved their way inside. They deduced from signage and a card catalog-like system how to find the documents they were looking for...

...except there were no documents, the information was being held as vapour.

"Vapour?" Martha asked, standing behind the Doctor as they made their way up to floor two on a moving ramp.

"Yep," he answered with a pop of his lips.

"So we breathe it?"

"Yep," he repeated.

"What, is it a micro-atomic chip system?"

He chuckled. "Yes," he answered. "Where did you come by that info?"

"The other day when I was looking for a place to recycle empty containers from the fermented Sigloo berries, remember? You had something up on one of your windows about it, and I happened to catch some of it before I opened a new ethernet browse."

"Hm. I forget that you can read Gallifreyan now," he mused.

She smiled. "That's right, so no secret IMing with some ethernet temptress. I'm onto you, mister."

"Blimey, you caught me," he said flatly.

She chuckled. "See?"

He smiled. "Well, you're going to love the vapour system," he told her. "It's so convenient."

"It seems like it would not be exactly a space-saver."

He shrugged. "Yeah, but they save so much with the ecological implications of _not_ having screens or lasers for display, plastic storage cards that need disposing-of, or microchips that use mercury. No plasma, no moving parts, no viruses... it's a kind of genius."

"Of course it is," she agreed. "Just takes some room, I should think."

"It does. But it's not as bad as you'd think."

On the second floor, they found a lift which led to the top floor, where records were kept. When they exited the lift, they were in an atrium-like space. All around them, there were windows with panoramic views of the capitol city below. Above, there was a glass ceiling. Above that covering the span of the entire top floor, a cool-looking, gently-sparkling pool of water filtered sunlight throughout, and made it dance on the white tile beneath their feet. There was no furniture of any kind, however, Martha did note one small row of nozzles coming from the glass ceiling about twenty feet from where they were standing.

_"This_ is the hall of records?" she asked.

"It is the hall of vapours," a female voice said. She came from behind a pillar that Martha had not even noticed was there, and showed herself. She was about Martha's height, was wearing what looked like a space-age business suit in shocking blue, and she had opaque yellow skin. "But is of the same spirit. Hello. My name is Vyolen. How may I help you?"

"I'm not sure yet," said the Doctor. "I guess... well, first of all, what happened to the planet Azu?"

Vyolen's eyebrows went up. "You'd like to know that history of Azu? Really?"

"Yes, please," said the Doctor. He adopted a whimsical air of insanity, very familiar to his Companion. "I've been in a coma for quite a long time... got to catch up."

"Very well," Vyolen said, and motioned for them to follow. As she walked, her voice went up a notch, and she orated, "Welcome to the seventeenth floor. On the sixteenth floor, our computers upload information via micro-atomic chips, which are water molecules split into atoms, then split again and adhered to sub-microscopic pieces of datonium-based data chips."

"Right," said Martha. "Then they are re-adhered as atoms, then water molecules. The molecules are then pumped up to the ceiling above the seventeenth floor." She gestured to the pool above. "And when data is called up, it is sprayed as vapour at the person making the request, and the datonium reacts in the body with things like serotonin and adrenaline, and begin to form their own neural pathways in the brain, and within a few seconds, the data becomes knowledge."

Vyolen turned on her heel to face them earnestly. "Well, aren't we knowledgeable?" she asked.

"Sorry," Martha whispered, realising she had been acting a bit of a know-it-all. She looked up at the Doctor, and he was smirking. "Please continue."

"No need," Vyolen said tightly. "Except to tell you, the sixteenth floor has a special division meant for data replication. Any time data is called up, they copy it so that it is not lost to us."

"I did not know that," Martha admitted.

"Hm," sniffed the yellow woman in blue.

They found that they were now standing beneath the nozzles Martha had noticed earlier. Vyolen reached into her pocket and handed the Doctor a device that looked very much like an iPhone, to Martha's eye, anyway. "This will help you call up the data. It interfaces with the sixteenth floor," she said. She leaned in and slid icons and lists all over the little screen with her finger, even as the Doctor held it. "Here you go - the history of planet Azu. From there you can navigate however you like."

"Thank you," he said, looking up at the pool above their heads, and marvelling at how easy it must be to become _learned_ in this culture.

"But, a warning," said Vyolen, and the Doctor's eyes rested upon hers again. "Beware of overload. This level of ease with acquiring information causes some to get greedy. The brain is an extraordinary thing, but the neurons can still only fire so much all at once before they shut down. Sometimes the damage is permanent. And, in a less-serious turn of events, random information is useless, even as installed data, if there is no connection and no big-picture. Excessive vapour-inhalation on a sole occasion can cause that. It might even cause existing cognitive connections to fail."

"Oh," the Doctor said, blinking, surprised. "Thanks for letting me know." He knew that his and Martha's brains probably could handle a lot more than Vyolen reckoned, but it was still a good thing to keep in mind. The two of them had more, bigger _existing cognitive connections_ than most other beings, what with their perspective over the "Mandala" of time and space. Truthfully, he didn't know if their Time Lord minds would more strongly resist the influence of excessive vapour inhalation, or be more susceptible to the side-effects because of their complicatedness. He decided not to inhale enough to find out.

"One more warning," Vyolen said, turning to Martha. She took a step forward and gently touched Martha's baby bulge with the tips of her fingers, just for a moment. "The vapours have never been inhaled by any being in the midst of gestation. We do not know the effects. We believe that a fetus' neural pathways could be diminished in the same way, though it would take _much less_ absorption of information to do damage. Not to mention the possible damage from the vapour itself, as an inhaled substance. Experts have speculated, but research has never been conducted on the topic. However, it is your choice."

Similarly, Martha's eyebrows went up, and she said, "Oh! Thanks for that." She turned to the Doctor. "I'll meet you in the lobby in half an hour. Be careful, okay?"

"Yep. You too."

* * *

Martha was sitting on a bench on the ground floor near the door when the Doctor stepped onto the moving ramp. It moved him downward slowly, and as it did, he began to see the look on her face. It was distinct worry.

Martha Jones had never been a devil-may-care sort of woman, and she had become considerably more jumpy since becoming pregnant. Understandable, what with the nightmares, the newfound Time Lord abilities, the disturbing knowledge she held of the future, not to mention the everyday anxieties associated with become a first-time mum. But this particular adventure had cranked her up yet another notch on the worry scale. It was that infernal painting.

At this moment, her face was scrunched up in a fixed frown, the sort that he had never before seen just land on her face and take up residence. Her frowns were usually replaced in fairly short order by determination or some sort of beatific perspective on the problem at-hand. Either that, or she would release it and just have a little cry.

But it was a frown now, and it wasn't moving. He walked rapidly down the ramp, and went straight to her. She was looking at the floor and did not notice him until his Converse came into view on the tile where she was boring holes with her eyes.

"You saw it again, didn't you?" he asked.

"Yes!" she responded. "This time it was in the loo!"

"What?"

"You heard me! I went to use the loo after I left you, and there it was, right inside the door, plain as day."

"A print. It has to be a print."

"Nope. I examined it. It's the original."

He sat down beside her. "How do you know?"

"From the texture. From the frame. And the way it scratched at me. When I touched it, took it off the wall, it was like having spiders crawling all over my hands. All over my senses." She shuddered. "I had to force myself not to drop it on the floor and run out of there."

The painting had always 'scratched at' Martha more than at him, and he knew it was more than just an uneasiness at seeing her own likeness so uncannily rendered. There was something intrinsic to the painting that bothered her. A print would just be a disturbing image, whereas the original was almost like a malevolent organism.

"Okay, well, Martha, I learned some things up there in the vapour room, which might change the game for you."

"Like what?"

"Well, first of all, I learned the fact that there were sales of Azuros beasts and all manner of different sentient creatures to the authorities on planet Oliris for the entire seven hundred year period between when we left there, and before the magma began to boil and the population had to abandon the planet. Then, they resumed the sales after setting up shop here on Gufere, and it has never stopped. All of the sales were the result of kidnappings, for _entertainment_ purposes, and all beings were never to be returned."

"Blimey," she sighed. "That means after a thousand years, that rubbish is still happening on Oliris. That obscene carnival."

"But that just tells us about the slavery thing. It seems like there is more to be learned about the painting now."

"Well, yeah," she said matter-of-factly. "We've always known that, but I thought we said the slavery ring was our priority."

"It still is," he said, but something in his tone made her take notice. Maybe he wasn't so sure of himself.

"Why, what did you find out that might _change the game for me_ regarding the painting?" she wanted to know.

There was a pause, while he stared straight forward. Then he said, "Well, it might be nothing. I need to go back to the vapours. Do you want to wait here, or come with?"


	6. Chapter 6

**This chapter is short, but revelatory. If I didn't end it here, it would go on for another 7,000 words! ;-)**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

Once again, he came down on the moving ramp and saw her sitting on a bench near the lobby door. She had chosen to stay here, rather than return to the vapour room with him. This time, he did not hurry down the ramp.

"Well?" she asked, looking up at him as he approached.

He resumed his place beside her on the bench. He leaned back against it and rested his elbows on the back, stretching out his legs. He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, contemplating.

"Doctor?"

"I went up there to research the painting."

"I figured."

"The only information that was contained in the vapour was the fact that the painting's existence here was documented two-hundred-ninety-eight years ago. No one really knows what happened to it after that."

"Okay. So, does that _change the game for me_, like you said?"

"I'm afraid it does. Because here's what I learned when I was in the vapour room the first time: the planet Azu began to flood with magma two-hundred-ninety-eight years ago as well. Within an hour, it became clear that within another hour, all solid ground would have essentially melted or become part of the liquid inferno. So, all the inhabitants who were able, they hopped onto space buses and got the hell out of there."

"Can't fault them for that."

"Nope. But it was a _they-left-with-only-the-clothes-on-their-back_ sort of situation. They were instructed specifically not to bring anything with them, in order to save space on the buses. They barely escaped with their lives. Then they all came here, and the Guferians were nice enough to take them in, provide them with shelter, food, and any necessary personal effects that had been left behind. And there is absolutely no indication that _any_ refugee from Azu disobeyed that order for any reason. They were thoroughly searched as they boarded the space buses. Even the royal family came on-board with nothing in their hands."

Martha turned her entire body to look at him. She stared for a few moments, and he stared back. "So, if they brought nothing with them, not even things they held very, very dear..."

"Yep, I know what you're thinking, 'cause I'm thinking it too."

"...why would anyone risk smuggling that painting on-board? A painting that had previously been hanging in a cold, dank, grey file room?"

"They wouldn't. They didn't."

"So, what, the painting hitched a ride here, all on its own?" she asked, more loudly than either of them would have liked. Her voice reverberated in the large space around them. Fortunately, there were very few others around, and no-one seemed to notice.

"That, I do not know. It could be that the timing is just a coincidence. The painting was documented around the same time as the exodus from Azu, but maybe it had been here since before that, and no-one noticed it."

Martha smiled at him reluctantly. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

"No, I really don't," he answered.

* * *

For lack of a better idea at this stage, they decided to do some research in their own archives. The Doctor had an entire library consecrated to Time Lord texts, written in Gallifreyan, and all about the history of planets, peoples and cultures. They were interested in chronology, of course, and the library was seen as a place where time, when all else failed, could be reconciled as an intellectual pursuit, rather than a visceral one. A sequence of events and facts. Most TARDISes had had such a library, but very few Time Lords had ever used it for its intended purpose, which was to help see the big-picture. Many of them had used it for just this sort of occasion: other types of research are getting us nowhere, time to crack a book.

_"The Life and Times of Oliris the Leisure Planet," _Martha said, pulling a surprisingly concise book from a shelf, basically at eye-level to her. She took a few steps backwards and perched upon a table, opening the book to a random page. The Doctor took a seat in a nearby armchair, and waited for her to impart some startling information.

"Here we go," she said, after staring at the page for a minute or so. "_The citizens of Oliris have a long history of siphoning resources from other planets. Short, unverified accounts from officials of victimised peoples exist - please see Appendix C. There are occasional reports in the oral history of Oliris paying fairly for the things they want and/or require, but most indicators point to thievery or other practices which are, perhaps, technically not illegal according to galactic law, but which flout the spirit of the law just the same."_

"Siphoning off resources? Enough so that the Time Lords would take notice and bother to put it into a book? Blimey. How did I not know about this?"

"Well, contrary to popular belief, Doctor, you can't know everything," she shrugged. She dived back into the book. _"There are indicators within the short accounts that some planets and peoples that might otherwise be called _victimised_ may have worked in tandem with authorities on Oliris. Some of the aforementioned reports of Oliris' payment for resources may be the result of illegal transactions on the individual planets in question; planetary authorities selling off its own resources for monetary gain, with or without the knowledge of commoners."_

"Like the Azuros beast," said the Doctor. "Paid for, kidnapped in the middle of the night, secret files."

"But at least files do exist," she commented. Then, she read, _"How many of these transactions result from corruption (the need for personal gain) is not known - perhaps cannot be known - and it should be noted, these stories could not be considered the fault of Oliris anyhow. However, it is still possible that the funds do go toward the good of peoples, and/or may be the result of desperation on the part of the individual governments."_

"Does it give examples of what kinds of resources?"

She pushed her fingertip against the page. "Let's see... water, nitrogen reserves, certain fruits, erm... oh, here, it says, _The people of Oliris have an uncanny interest in other sentient beings, and their talents. Much as they might acquire (however one chooses to read this) a natural resource, they may try to acquire a talent. Full records on the extent of this voracity (if it is to be called such), of course, do not exist. Without full accounts it is difficult to take them to task."_

"Yeah, tell me about it," muttered the Doctor.

Martha was silent for another couple of minutes, then her jaw dropped and she looked at the Doctor with wide eyes.

"What?" he asked.

_"They are extraordinarily adept at dampening psychic waves,"_ Martha read. _"This is curious because their faults lie in the hunger for acquisition, not in any inclination toward destruction (which may indeed be the reason why their crimes have gone unchecked). Their interest in the powers of other beings may have dark implications indeed, but it is not understood why psychic talents in particular would be quelled on Oliris, when other abilities are allowed to exist unimpeded._ Hm, sounds like the Time Lords were beginning to suspect what we already know._"_

"It does sound like it, yes," the Doctor muttered, still sitting, thoughtful, in an armchair. "And I'll tell you something else, now you mention it: in the entire showcase of tricks and trade at that carnival, I did not see one soothsayer or fortune-teller. No-one reading cards or palms or tea leaves, no crystal balls or mind-reading. "

"Yeah, even on Earth at least _some_ of those things would appear in a carnival like that," she commented. "Although, on Earth, most of it is rubbish."

The Doctor laughed mirthlessly and stood up. "Oh, that explains so much."

"Yes, it does."

"Martha, I saw at least two or three..." he said, then stared off into space for a moment, and seemed to be tallying something on his fingers. "No, at least five... no, _six_ different species there, that have some sort of psychic bent. And we just saw a small fraction of what's actually there! There must be hundreds of psychic species there! Of course, all of them have _something else_ they can do that makes Oliris interested in them..."

Martha hopped down off the table, still with the book in her hand and she took a few steps forward toward him. "Oh, I see. You think..."

"I think that whoever runs that carnival is dampening psychic abilities on purpose to keep the slaves quiet. Prevent them from communicating telepathically with each other, from conspiring, or even calling out for help! Oh, because, think about it! If you were a psychic being, wouldn't you try and send out a distress call if you were in danger?"

"I am a semi-psychic being," she reminded him. "At least temporarily, and yes, I _did_ try to send out a distress call when I was in danger."

"Mm-hm," he nodded. "So, if you were running a highly illegal slavery ring with a myriad of different sentient beings from all over the universe, some of whom have varying degrees of psychic power, wouldn't you want to dampen it with... with..."

"...some kind of invisible dome?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Yes!" the Doctor shouted, in response to Martha's speculation that there must be some kind of invisible psychic-dampening dome over the Pecclates Carnival on the planet Oliris. And with that one word, he was running for the door of the library, on some sort of very sudden mission.

"Wait," Martha protested, setting the book down, but he was gone. She sighed with exasperation at him, and at herself, since she couldn't move very quickly at the moment.

She followed him out the door as swiftly as she was able. She found him in the console room, as per usual, staring at the screen.

"Would you like to share your insanity with the rest of the class?" she asked, hands on hips, irritated.

"Our priority just became, pulling down that psychic barrier, didn't it?" he asked her, though it wasn't really a question.

"I suppose so."

"Well, I think I know who can help us do that."

"Okay. Who?"

"Another species I saw knocking about in a carnival tent, just before we got approached by Michelangelo to have your portrait done. I saw a Vesthar Konig. They are very large humanoids , except their skin-tone is a bit on the greyish side. Do you remember? They were having people add weights to the yoke across their shoulders."

"I don't remember," she confessed. "I saw a myriad of other things, but I don't recall seeing that."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "Anyway, they are ridiculously strong, but also happen to be capable of _massive_ psychic power. I mean _gigantic_. They communicate with one another almost exclusively through telepathy, and they can send signals through supernovas, and aim them perfectly, and intact. I don't know of any other species that can do that."

"Whoa. That gives me a headache just to contemplate it," she frowned, thinking of how her own brain had grown out of its original shell in the past six months.

"Well, it's illegal for them to do it, except for certain beings in a position of power, and only under particular circumstances."

"Ah. Because it would interfere with the trajectory of exploding debris, which could cause a ripple effect of gases and fire and mayhem."

"Yep. And think of the concentration involved! It would take a _team _of Time Lords to do that."

"So their planet is called Vesthar, but they are Konigs?"

"Well, their species is called Vesthustran, and they have a hierarchal system, not based on class or anything, but rather, on physical strength. The Konigs are the biggest, the Rennas are one step down, and then there are Ekudians and Noctos, who are marginally differently-sized, and sort of at the bottom rung. They're between three and four feet tall."

"Lovely."

"It's not so bad. The Vesthustrans believe firmly that the small and weak should be protected at all costs. But they do not believe the small and weak are inferior, just more vulnerable. Plenty of Ekudians and Noctos hold positions of high regard in the clergy, and in the arts and sciences, but they are not allowed to be in the military. Yet, anyway."

"How do you know this?"

"I've studied their religion," he said. "They're a pious bunch. Their entire government is based on their spiritual beliefs as well. I've worked with them a few times - they helped me rescue the last living unicorn from a vat of sulfuric acid."

"A unicorn?"

"It's a long story. The vat was expanding exponentially, and there was the king of the Warthogs, and he was... no, the point is, their religion prohibits the sale of any living thing, and the priests are very involved in the running of things. I trust them, Martha. I trust them to tell me the truth about how the two Konigs wound up at a carnival on Oliris picking up heavy things to amuse a tittering public. If they did not choose to go there as a vocational pursuit or something, then they were stolen."

"But what if the government is in cahoots, like on Azu, selling off those blue beasts in the middle of the night?"

"I said I trust them. That's the best I can do. I know them, I know their ways, and I know some of their officials. Mind you, it's been a few regenerations since I last saw any of them, but if the TARDIS doesn't convince them of who I am, well..."

"Okay, so, we're going to visit."

"Yes, I think so," he replied, diving back into his computer screen. "If I can find the right place and time."

"What are we going to ask them to do?"

"I'm not sure yet," he answered. "But if anyone can pull down that barrier, they can. And if anyone can pick up any little tinkling of psychic energy that the barrier hasn't _quite _been able to quell, they can."

The TARDIS was humming, though not in her usual way. It was the music she made when she was thinking.

Martha slid onto the stool beside him, and looked at the screen. The jumble of geometric patterns that flashed across the screen told her what she wanted to know. "You're trying to find the right time to speak to them."

"Yes. Again, I don't know how long this has been going on, or how long it _will_ go on. I don't know how many Konigs have come and gone through there."

"Won't that mess with history, if you intercede with them at a time somewhere in the middle of all this? Shouldn't they have to see it through?"

The Doctor looked at her with tedium.

"Okay, yeah, you're right," she said, shutting her eyes and shaking her head. "Time in flux. Not a fixed point - got it. Sorry. Sometimes I'm slow with my perspective over time and the cosmos."

He chuckled at the little hint of sarcasm in her voice.

The TARDIS made a sound to let them know she had made a decision.

"The year Seven-fifty-two KL Star Sigma?" Martha asked.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked the TARDIS.

"She's saying that's the year when the carnival began using the Konigs from Vesthar," Martha read from the screen. Then she looked up into the Time Rotor. "You really want us to head it off that early in their history?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I reckon she figures, not fixed in time, why not get them out of there early, and save the Konigs from their servitude for all those generations?"

"Won't that cause a paradox?"

"Oh, come on. You know that's not set in stone either!"

"Fine. So when the hell is Seven-fifty-two KL Star Sigma?"

"Around, I'd say, 1760, in Earth terms. So, 250 years or so before we left London and went to the carnival."

"Doctor, is that you?" a voice called.

He looked at Martha and fluttered his eyebrows. "See? Wicked psychic," he whispered. "He's probably not even talking. He's using the TARDIS' sentient interface to communicate and manifest his voice in the console room. He _felt_ us coming."

"Doctor?" said the voice.

"It's me," said the Doctor. "Whom am I speaking to?"

"It's Yorlo! The governor!"

"Yorlo!" the Doctor exclaimed. "How have you been, old man?"

"I've been fine, Doctor, but what brings you back so soon?"

"Er, well, when did we last see each other?"

"No more than two rotations ago," Yorlo responded. "Remember, we rescued that unicorn. Have you forgotten already?"

"Ah. Two rotations... approximately a month. Well, for me, it's been a bit longer."

"No matter. Come on in!"

Yorlo cleared a path for the TARDIS to teleport directly into his office.

The Doctor stepped out the door first, greeting a man of nearly eight feet. He looked mightily surprised.

"I'm sorry, sir," Yorlo said formally. "I was under the impression that the Doctor would be coming himself."

The Doctor smiled. "I _am_ the Doctor, Yorlo. I've just... changed."

"Well, I'll be... how long has it been for you?"

"Oh... about five hundred years, give or take."

"You certainly do look different," Yorlo said, still reluctant. "But I don't know anyone else who travels in a vessel that looks like _that_, so who am I to argue? But, where is your... partner? Last I saw you, you had a young woman with you."

Martha stepped through the door behind the Doctor.

He turned and encouraged her to step forward. "Yorlo, this my... well, partner, as you said. Martha Jones, this is Yorlo, governor of this sector of the planet Vesthar."

"Nice to meet you," Martha said, putting out her hand for him to shake.

He obliged, and returned the sentiment, but he frowned at her as he did so.

"Sorry, is something wrong?" she asked.

"It's just... well, where are you from, Martha Jones?"

"Earth. I'm from Earth. London."

"You're human, then?"

"Yes."

"Interesting." He was still looking her over and frowning. He paused and then indicated the bulge beneath her shirt. "And am I to understand that there is a little Time Lord growing in there?"

"Er, yes," she replied.

"Interesting," he repeated.

"Yorlo, what are you on about?" asked the Doctor, a minor hint of irritation betraying itself in his voice.

"I believe I've seen Martha Jones before. Though, before today..."

"Before today, what?" the Doctor demanded.

"Well, before today, I barely noticed... I just thought... well, I didn't think anything."

Yorlo's tone was light, and he was smiling. There was no reason to believe any danger was afoot, yet still, the travellers were uneasy. The Doctor and Martha looked at each other with confusion and trepidation.

This was not lost on Yorlo. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude aren't I? Or at least cryptic. Please, let me show you," the Vesthar answered, and he motioned for the Doctor and Martha to follow him.

"I don't like where this is going," Martha whispered as they went through the office doors out into a hallway.

"That's because you know where it's going," the Doctor muttered back to her.

"But it's two hundred and fifty years before our time!" she hissed.

"I know."

* * *

**Author's note: My hope, at this point, is that you are not getting frustrated with all the painting sightings, but rather, now you are intrigued because the painting now seems to be able to travel back in time! I mean, handing it down through thousands of generations is one thing - this is another.**

**In any case, please review! And thank you for reading!**


	8. Chapter 8

**I must apologize for all the strange names and invented planetary histories. I hope you're not getting too confused!**

**As always, read and review. It's what keeps me writing! :-)**

* * *

**Chapter 8**

"We keep trying to make the carnival a priority, but the damn painting won't let us!" Martha shrieked as they stepped through a door. "Or at least, it won't let _me_. I can't think about anything else!"

They had spent the last three hours conferring with Yorlo over the carnival and slavery ring, telling him where they had been and what they had found, and then having a fairly strange meal which Martha wasn't even sure she should be eating. She was anxious, and she had been holding it in for quite a long time.

Yorlo had given them the guest room in the governor's mansion for the time being. They had declined at first, preferring to remain in the TARDIS in their own quarters, but the Vesthar Konig had insisted that the two of them needed a proper getaway. They related to him the story of the carnival and the painting, and about not having even spent one night on the leisure planet together.

"I know, but we have nothing to go on, concerning the painting," the Doctor said, taking her by the shoulders, guiding her to the bed to a sitting position. "Except for some vague reports held in vapour, of the painting arriving on Gufere around the same time that Azu was destroyed..."

She wasn't listening. She got to her feet again and began to pace. "It's like it's intentionally getting in our way! Like, we're not paying enough attention to it, so it's going, _hey, look at me, aren't I intriguing and creepy?_"

"Well, you might be right, Martha, because I'm starting to think it's got something to do with that psychic barrier," he said, now sitting down on the bed himself.

"But it's _two-hundred-and-fifty bloody years before the thing was even painted!_ We were there, Doctor! I sat for the portrait, and it was done as we waited, in 2008. It is now, what, 1760, you said? Yorlo says the Vesthar don't have time travel, and neither do any of the planets we've visited since we got rid of that infernal thing, so what the hell?" She was practically shouting now.

"I wish I knew, Martha."

"And what was all that rubbish about how _interesting_ it is that I'm human, and how _interesting_ it is that I'm carrying a little Time Lord?"

The Doctor sighed. "He's a different sort of being, Martha. You and I have big-picture sort of senses about the universe, but he has much more acute right-in-front-of-you senses. He may have some kind of feeling that your humanness and the baby's Time Lordness and the painting are all connected. Probably, once the pieces are all in place and we know what we're doing, you and I will develop a big-picture sense of what's going on as well."

To his surprise, she stopped pacing, faced him, and asked, "You think?"

"Yes! And Yorlo said he would help us with the psychic barrier, so once the air around the carnival gets cleared, maybe we'll see it."

She stuck out her bottom lip, but she didn't know she was doing it. It was genuine dismay. "What if we need to see the big picture before we can pull down that barrier?"

"Then _that_ will become clear to us before too long as well."

She put her head back and rested it for a few moments, then stretched her arms back behind her. "I wish I had your confidence," she groaned as her joints seemed to snap eight times each.

The Doctor smiled softly. "You do."

She stood up straight and smiled back. "Thanks. But that's not what I meant."

"I know. But case in point," he began, standing and approaching her. "You have always been bothered by the painting, even before we knew it had some kind of mind of its own. It grated on you somehow, and now I know: you're not just paranoid. You're brilliant." He stroked her shoulders

"You thought I was paranoid?" she asked, her face having morphed into helpless inquiry.

"I thought it was a possibility," he confessed. "Sorry. I also said you're brilliant."

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed, moving away.

"But deep down, I knew that if you felt the painting was wonky, then it probably is. Frankly, I'm feeling a little left out. You've hated the painting from the first moment, it's on Yorlo's radar now, and all I know is it turns up in places where it shouldn't be. What, am I the last to know?"

She chuckled in spite of herself. "Apparently."

* * *

The travellers took two hours' rest in their room, and then graciously declined a dinner invitation from the governor. They chose instead to find some "comfort food" in the TARDIS. Yorlo was quite understanding; the Doctor had explained Martha's trepidation about eating unknown foods while pregnant.

"Humans from developped parts of the planet hold with a culture of mild paranoia when it comes to prenatal behaviours," he had said, internally vowing never, _ever _to let Martha know he'd even had that thought. But really, Yorlo knew that Vesthar cuisine was often repellent to outsiders.

They did spend a relaxing night in the room that Yorlo had offered in the mansion, however, and the next day, the three of them had breakfast together in the TARDIS' kitchen. Martha, feeling a little sheepish about her dislike, and fear, of the food the governor offered, prepared a spinach and feta scramble with turkey sausages and some waffles for the three of them. It was a rare occurrence in which she cooked while the Doctor sat. He sat giving her both wanted and unwanted cuisine tips, but nevertheless, he sat. He and the governor enjoyed some very strong coffee at the breakfast bar, and they talked about various things as they waited for Martha to finish.

When they finally sat down at the table, as expected, Yorlo said a little prayer, and then asked, "So about this psychic barrier. What are the two of you hoping to accomplish by pulling it down?"

"Well, we reckon that once it's down, about half of the slaves will be rescued immediately either by intergalactic militias or by their own people, since the psychic ones will be able to get their distress calls out. And even if the authorities at the carnival are able to get the barrier back up, the damage will have been done; the word will be out, and Oliris will not be able to justify the carnival to the Shadow Proclamation or anyone else," the Doctor explained. He and Martha had discussed this at dinner the night before.

"Okay, fair enough," said Yorlo, trying the waffle. He swallowed his bite politely, but then pushed the waffle aside. "But if they put the barrier back up, they will do it with a vengeance. They might even cloak it and deny its existence, to avoid prosecution. They could possibly even equip it with some kind of thought-control mechanism, if they haven't already."

"Thought control?" Martha asked.

Yorlo nodded, going after his sausage, and liking it. "Keep them from thinking of home, or freedom or their friends, or even from disliking the situation they're in. Deliver an electric shock or something."

"Blimey," she muttered. "I thought we had problems with a dome that we don't even know for sure exists yet."

"You don't know?" asked Yorlo.

"Not as such," said the Doctor. "It's a theory, really. We were hoping you could help us with that, too."

Yorlo sighed. "Well, I think the best way to find out is..."

He was interrupted by a bell sounding from someplace within the TARDIS.

Yorlo's eyes went wide with surprise. The Doctor cleared his throat, apologised and sheepishly excused himself. After a moment, Martha did the same, following him out to the console room.

* * *

"Hello?" the Doctor said, after hitting a button.

Martha joined him on the platform around the console. After a beat, Yorlo appeared in the doorway between the console room and the rest of the ship, but he simply stood, looking concerned.

"Doctor?" a voice said, piping in through some sort of tannoy. It was a male voice, Martha felt, but she knew from the sound of the bell that it was a call coming in from somewhere across time from an unknown region, therefore, the sound of a "male" voice in her mind could be entirely subjective.

"Yes. Who's that?" the Doctor asked.

"My name is Safiro. I am from the planet Azu."

"Oh. Yes, hello," the Doctor replied. "What can I do for you?"

"Forgive me, but I've heard through the grapevine that you and your companion have been making inquiries into things to do with the Pecclates Carnival on Oliris and its goings-on with Azu."

"We have," the Doctor responded cautiously. "What is your interest in that?"

"I have further intelligence to offer," replied Safiro. "I don't know why you are investigating or what you are trying to accomplish, but I wish to be of help. I have learned in my studies that the Time Lords did good, worthwhile work, and that you are the last, am I correct?"

The Doctor looked at Martha. "Yes, more or less. At least for the moment."

"Well," said Safiro's voice. "I don't know if relating to you my own experiences on Oliris will be useful to you, but if anything that I can do would open more doors for you, cause any realisations..."

"Are you telling me you've been inside the carnival?" the Doctor asked, a bit to keenly in Martha's opinion.

"Yes, I am."

"And you made it out?"

"Yes."

"Are you an Azuros beast?"

"Yes."

Martha took two steps forward and grabbed the Doctor's left shoulder with both hands. She mouthed, "Big, blue, dancing..."

The Doctor nodded at her.

"Blimey!" she mouthed.

"Forgive us, Safiro. We were not aware that Azuros beasts received an education. Didn't you say _in your studies_?"

"I did," said Safiro. "And we do. Receive an education, I mean. Yes, it's a common misconception. Many folks think that all we're good for is the dance."

"Oh, we don't think that. I know from my own studies that Azuros beasts are sentient and intelligent and capable of much more than dancing. But receiving a proper education is a whole different story," the Doctor told him.

"I'll say it is," Martha chimed in. "Why would a planet that bothers to educate you then turn round and sell you off as a slave?"

"Is that the Doctor's companion?" he asked. "You are human? I've read that that Doctor often travels with humans."

"Yes, I'm human."

"Well then, I believe your planetary kinfolk would answer that question with these three words: _the almighty dollar_."

"Ah. Well, actually, my particular kinfolk might say _the almighty pound_, but I get your meaning," Martha answered with a little smile. "So they, what, send you to university just so you'll learn how to be as charming and intelligent as possible, then they sell you down the river?"

"I don't believe they educate us for the sole purpose of turning us into a commodity. More accurately, it could be said that the government here has fewer and fewer scruples about how and why it sells its wares."

"Safiro, I'm looking at the call identification display," the Doctor said. "You are contacting us across time."

"Am I?"

"Indeed. How are you doing it?"

"I'm using government facilities," said Safiro. "Call me a hypocrite: I work for an insurance-counting division now as an actuary of sorts - I'm one of the few Azuros beasts who is allowed to hold a job. It's how I know you've been poking about. Your faces have appeared in some surveillance footage that was sent to me to assess the insurance implications. Incidentally, I don't believe there _are_ any insurance implications."

"You are calling from approximately twelve hundred years into the future from where we are," the Doctor told him. "So, when you say, _the government_, you mean the government of Gufere, do you not?"

"I do. Azu was destroyed..."

"We know. In a flood of molten lava, in a matter of two hours and everyone moved to Gufere, if they could."

"Yes. And we assimilated. And the selling-off of sentient beings did not stop."

"Is that why you decided to work for them? To infiltrate, and try to stop it from the inside?" asked Martha.

"Not specifically," he confessed. "I'm just trying to make a living. Though, trying to stop it has crossed my mind more than once. Most recently, today when I discovered you two were making inquiries."

"So, what the hell kind of equipment could have found us this quickly?" asked the Doctor.

"I have no idea. To my eye, it is a standard comm system. As I said, I have studied the Time Lords a bit, and I know that you travel on a certain frequency... I simply listened and changed channels until I heard your TARDIS' signal. I had no idea I could contact you across time!"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other and frowned.

Safiro continued, "And I have to say, it's funny you should mention the Exodus from Azu to Gufere, Doctor, because it's where my story begins."


	9. Chapter 9

**Short but sweet. Please review. :-)**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

The Doctor and Yorlo stood, feet apart, arms crossed over their chests, listening intently. Martha sat on the jump seat.

"Well, to tell you the truth, my story actually begins a few hundred rotations _before_ the Azu/Gufere Exodus," Safiro corrected.

"That's about... what, a decade, in human terms?" the Doctor asked.

"Maybe a bit more," said Safiro. "But yes, thereabouts. Mind you, on Azu and Gufere we live at least five times longer than humans."

"Of course," said the Doctor.

"I was fresh out of the Academy, and I had what one might call wanderlust. I wanted to see everything - stars, planets, different peoples and creatures, you name it. So, a few friends and I decided to take an extended holiday - sort of indefinitely. We figured we'd come back home if and when it suited us.

"Actually, I don't really know what happened to them; there were five of us, and we parted ways after about a hundred rotations because... well, on the surface it was a squabble over whether to go snow-shoeing in the Touchfall Mountains of Tocabatom or hydroplaning in the sulfur lake on Butrialios VI. Deep down, I now understand, it was the result of that insidious creature that seeps into your life when you spend too much time with the same folks. We'd grown apart; no longer wanted the same things.

"As far as I knew, they continued to travel. One of my friends actually got a job as a tour guide to one of the space hoppers that takes off from Butrialios! Right from the sulfur lake! After that gig ended, I have no clue. But I digress.

"The point is, I was travelling alone after all those years of being with my friends. I was earning my keep working in a watering hole in the Recesh Galaxy where I had decided to stay temporarily, and I received a call on my portable comm unit. The planet was in peril. It was an all-call, a distress signal that went out to anyone who was off-world at the time."

"Was the call asking you to come home and help?" the Doctor growled.

"Yes, it was."

"Why would citizens of a planet about to be swallowed in a sea of lava call out and ask anyone to come home? Wouldn't it be more like, _FYI, we're all in trouble. Stay where you are, since there's not much you can do without getting killed_?" asked Martha.

"Exactly," the Doctor responded, looking sideways at Martha.

"The call hadn't come from Azu," said Safiro. "At least not directly. It had come from a completely different planet, and had been bounced off of Azu, to make it seem as though it had come from home."

"Oliris," Martha sighed. "Okay, I'm getting it now." After a beat, she asked, "Wait, are you telling me that Oliris somehow orchestrated a volcano eruption _en masse_ , all over the planet?"

"No," Safiro said. "They did not orchestrate it, but they did take advantage of it. And they did orchestrate the ruse that brought all the off-worlders back to try and meet the space buses at particular coordinates to ease the load. They told us they could get more citizens to safety if we flew in with our transporters, especially the 960 Model transporters, the big ones."

"So what, were the Olirans waiting on an asteroid with a butterfly net?" she wanted to know.

"Nope. They transmatted us in, amid the chaos. There was so much traffic, no-one even noticed they were there," Safiro said sadly, remembering.

"Us?" asked Martha. "You were captured?"

"I was," he answered. "Along with about a dozen other Azuros Beasts, including some of my friends with whom I had started out travelling all those years ago. We were all flying about the orbit of Azu in those final minutes before planetfall, all having fallen victim to the fake distress call. Martha, you were commenting on the fact that we are educated, but then some of us are sold off... well, it all turned out to be futile in this case because Oliris thought they could use the commotion to steal us away, no one would notice, and they would be able to stop paying for the labour. I mean, not that they pay anyone once they're inside the carnival, but they do _buy_ their slaves from time to time."

Martha stood up and took two steps forward. "Am I hearing you correctly? You were _a slave_ on Oliris?"

"Yes, technically."

"At the Pecclates Carnival?"

"Yes."

"We now have word from the horse's mouth that this thing is real," she said to the Doctor.

But he was somewhere else. He didn't even shift his eyes to look at her. She searched him for a moment, until Safiro began to speak again.

"I'll assume that's your way of saying that you now have proof positive from someone who was there," he chuckled. "And I was, indeed, there. But only for a few hours."

"A few _hours_?" she asked.

"Yes, hours. Just after we arrived, the psychic barrier went offline. I don't know whether it caught a virus or malfunctioned at the mechanical level, or what. It was only down for three minutes, but we took advantage of the situation, just as they had. We Azuros communicated very quickly to each other that we needed to escape in the distracted chaos. And we did. All carnival officials went instantly to deal with the problem of putting the psychic barrier back up, and a bunch of us were able to slip out. I won't say we were unnoticed, but... well, we got out."

"Doctor, did you hear that?" she asked, trying to get through once again, though noticed a second time that his mind was not on the task at-hand. "Doctor, he's talking about the psychic barrier going down - are you... hello?"

"We were not recaptured because we were never on the official registry. They had not had time to record our DNA or energy stamps. We got off clean," Safiro continued.

Martha said, "Safiro, you'll have to excuse me a moment, the Doctor has checked out."

"No, I haven't," the Doctor said, almost without moving his lips.

"Well then, will you please react?" Martha requested.

"Trust me, I am," he muttered.

She crossed her arms and studied him for a few moments. Then she said, "Safiro, I think that I'll need a minute or two to speak to the Doctor about what we've just heard. Is there any way we can get hold of you to talk again, if we need to? I mean, that is, if you are finished with your story for the time being."

"I am finished," Safiro said with some finality. "Do with this information as you will. As I've said, I've learned that Time Lords do great work, so I will assume... well, anyway, I'll leave you to it. I am leaving my call signature in the memory bank into which I am speaking. You can use it to trace me, should you have any further questions."

"Thank you," Martha said.

"You're very welcome."

At that point, the call seemed to go silent.

"The Time Lords did great work," the Doctor mused.

"What is your problem?" she wanted to know. "Did you hear anything he said about the planetfall? The barrier?"

"Yes, I heard all of it. I need to examine that painting," he responded.

"Excuse me?" said Yorlo, chiming in. Martha had all but forgotten he was there. He had not said a word, throughout the dialogue with the Azuros Beast. "_That_ is what you got from this conversation?"

The Doctor, at last, turned his head to look at Yorlo. "Forgive me, old friend, but you wouldn't understand. This is something for Martha and me to deal with."

"It is?" she asked. "Mind telling me what that something is?"

"Set the TARDIS coordinates to _random_ and I'll show you."


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay folks. Another short, sweet one.**

**And hey, why not leave a review this time? Only one reader is reviewing regularly... *snif***

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

"Random time," Martha muttered, following the Doctor's instructions. "Random place." She flipped a switch then that set the TARDIS humming toward its new locale.

After a few moments, the vessel stopped. The Doctor took Martha's hand and without a word, they walked through the door, leaving a puzzled Yorlo in the console room.

"So where are we?" she asked. "I forgot to look at the display before we left the TARDIS."

They were traipsing across a damp, grassy field with no civilisation in sight, save for a tiny wooden shack in the distance. The Doctor was leading her straight toward it.

"I don't really know," he confessed. "I could make a guess, but it actually isn't that important. The point is..."

Within thirty seconds they had reached the shack, and without hesitation, the Doctor threw open the door and stepped inside. It appeared the shack had once been some kind of stable. Some objects resembling bridles and bits hung from the walls, as well as the rotted remains of some sort of grain-based feed in glass bins along the wall.

And sure enough, on the end of the room, hanging from a rusty nail, there was Martha's portrait.

She sighed. "Okay, there it is. What does this prove?"

"Nothing yet," he told her. "What was your theory about why this is happening?"

"I didn't have a valid theory," she said, rather more shrilly than she had intended. She threw up her hands. "I just thought maybe my _soul_ had been appropriated into the painting somehow. Or part of it."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes and said, "That's actually not bad."

"It isn't?"

"No, it's not, as hypotheses go. I just don't think it's true. But it's worth a look."

He took her hand and led her back out into the grass and back toward the TARDIS. When they reached the inside, he said, "Do it again. Random."

"Er, why don't _you_ do it again?" she asked him. "So that I, and my swollen feet and weighed-down pelvis, can hang out here by the door without having to walk up and down that ramp."

"Okay," he shrugged. "Probably best if I do it this time anyhow."

Martha leaned against a rail near the door while the TARDIS moved to yet another random location.

Once again, the Doctor headed down the ramp, except this time, he stopped at the door and said to Martha, "Stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Martha was confused, but she stayed in the console room with Yorlo for about five minutes, chatting, until the Doctor returned.

When he stepped back through the door, he said, "Martha, I don't think it has anything to do with _you_. You weren't with me at all, and I still found the painting with no problem. I mean, I suppose we could really test that theory a bit better if I left you here and did another random jump to see if it's _there_, but I'm pretty sure the painting isn't following you specifically."

"Are you certain it is still the original, Doctor?" asked Yorlo.

"Yep," said the Doctor. "More certain than ever. We have seen the original everywhere we have been since leaving Oliris. And now that I..."

"Now that you, what?" Martha practically shouted. "What is going on?"

"In a moment," he answered. She let out an exasperated hiss.

One more time, the Doctor set the TARDIS on "random," and they landed in yet another unknown time and place.

"Yorlo," said the Doctor. "You go this time. Martha and I will stay here. You go to the nearest building and poke around a bit, see if you don't come across it."

When Yorlo returned, it was fifteen minutes later, but he had indeed found the painting.

"Yorlo found it on his own. So, it's not about us," the Doctor said to Martha. "What is it about?"

"The TARDIS!" Martha exclaimed. "Oh my God, the painting is following the TARDIS!"

The Doctor's eyebrows went up and he nodded knowingly. "I wasn't sure until now, but... now I'm sure. It's about the TARDIS."

Martha's eyes were drawn to the golden lights on the ceiling and the wheels of the universe began to spin behind them. The Doctor could practically _feel_ her metacogitating as some understanding set in.

* * *

The Doctor thanked Yorlo for his help, but graciously reminded him that this really was something for him and Martha to deal with, at least for the moment. Yorlo agreed without protest to cool his heels for a bit in the TARDIS, and gave them directions to Martha's portrait which he'd found on his own a few minutes before. It was inside the building nearest to the TARDIS, which turned out to be a theatre, and the painting hung in the lobby. At the moment, a crowd was gathering in anticipation of some performance or other, while the two of them stood staring at it. Neither of them moved for about two minutes, but at last, it was Martha who stepped forward and reached out to touch it.

She ran her fingers over a small area near the lower right corner. It was a spot where the royal purple shawl in which Michelangelo had painted her was bending and folding a little, and some shadowy nuances complemented the true violet paint. Her fingers moved in a circle for a few moments, and she pulled them away from the painting and examined her fingertips.

"Hm," she said, almost imperceptibly. Then she reached into her pocket and extracted a tool that the Doctor had almost forgotten she had: her own sonic screwdriver. He had fashioned it for her during a time when the danger-alert was high for her sister, counting on Martha's more and more acute Time Lord sensibilities to let her know how to use it.

She shined the sonic light into that same corner. The device's familiar noise ramped up to an extremely high frequency within a few moments, and she was forced to take her finger from the button.

She turned and faced the Doctor. "Is it protesting?"

"Maybe a little."

"Why? I'm not trying to manipulate anything, I'm just taking a reading."

"Well, it's not a protestation exactly. More like feedback coming through a speaker when someone holds the microphone too close."

"Am I right, Doctor, in what I'm thinking?"

"What are you thinking?"

She stepped even closer to him and lowered her voice. "That the paint is mixed with a tincture of Time Vortex, and that is what's making it follow the TARDIS all over time and the cosmos."

He smiled softly. "You know you're right."

"The Vortex wants to be whole," she said.

"Yes, it does."

"How is that even possible?"

"Oh, it's possible."

She turned back to the painting and tapped her foot at it. "So, the fact that _we _have_ seen_ it everywhere we've been, that's just a coincidence? It just goes and attaches itself to some wall, somewhere near where the TARDIS is parked, somewhere in the time vicinity, give or take a few hundred years... and we just _happen _ to come upon it?"

"I suppose. Or more likely, it _is_ following us, after a fashion, because it wants to be seen. Particles of Vortex want to be re-adhered to the whole, via the TARDIS' heart. It might, in fact, be semi-sentient, and knows that it is a work of art that can only make an impact visually, so it's zeroing in on us, and by extension, Yorlo, because we are the beings with visual perception associated with the TARDIS."

While he was talking, she had turned to face him, but now she went back to looking at her own likeness on the wall, with a slight bit of wonder, and an equal amount of disdain. "Blimey," she breathed. Once again, they were quiet for a few long moments, and then she faced the Doctor again. "I have to ask, Doctor... how did you know? I mean, I'm the one who didn't like the bloody thing to begin with. It was _my_ Spidey senses that tingled the most when the painting was in our hotel room, so how come you're the one who worked it out?"

He put his arm around her and guided her back toward the door which would lead them to open air, and then the TARDIS. "Martha, it must have become clear to you by now that just because you have acquired some of the abilities and perspectives innate to Time Lords, it doesn't mean that you now know everything that I know."

"Well, yeah," she agreed. "You have, what, eight hundred and some years' of plain-old _experience_ that I don't have. You've studied and traveled and done things..."

"Exactly."

He was silent for a moment, and then Martha asked, "So, is that all I get? You knew it because of experience?"

He inhaled loudly, then said, "Martha, have I told you my new theory on how the psychic barrier at the Pecclates Carnival works?"


End file.
